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Fed "Profits" of $76 Billion Sent To Treasury - Rodney Johnson / HSDent

Today the WSJ reported that the Fed remitted $76.9 billion of profits to the US Treasury last year.  What a load of bull!  To say that the Fed earns a "proft" on what it purchases implies that the Fed could incur a "loss."  This makes no sense.  The Fed sends all excess funds to the US Treasury.  There is no accounting for good or bad purchases.  I took a few minutes to write an email to the authors of the article.  I've included it below.

The 200,000 - Jeff Thredgold / Tea Leaf

The American economy registered one more sign of “better than expected” performance in December with the net addition of 200,000 jobs. Financial market players had expected a rise of roughly 155,000 net new jobs.

In addition, the nation’s unemployment rate declined from an adjusted 8.7% rate in November to 8.5% in December, the lowest level in nearly three years. The current 8.5% jobless rate compares to the 9.4% rate of one year ago, the 9.8% rate of December 2009, and the 7.3% rate during December 2008.

Greece is so Far Gone it is Almost a Parody of A Country - Rodney Johnson / HSDent

It is no secret that the Greek government cannot 1) collect taxes, 2) sufficiently cut their budget, or 3) develop any program that fosters economic growth.  These attributes seem to play out every month, and have been the same for years.  Even so, the influential members of the EU keep acting as if there are some hidden revenue streams or economic levers that have been left un-pulled in Greece and, if the EU only talks about it enough, something new and wonderful will happen.  Well, part of that does occur.  New things do happen, they just aren’t wonderful.